Our school: „Székely Mikó” Theoretical High School

Sf. Gheorghe

1300 students, 96 teacher 3 levels: primary (5-10 year), lower (11-14 year) and upper secondary (15-19 year old students);

3 class types: humanities, maths and IT, science;

-only at maths-IT and science classes: Physics - 3 hours/week; Maths 4-5 hours/week;

IT 3-7 hours/week;

1.CanSat programme 2.Robot building. Arduino programme 3. Measuring the speed of the light 4.Study the Sunspots. Measuring the

diameter of the Sun 5. Eratosthenes measurement and IYL-

Cosmic Light 2015 6. Globe at night/light pollution 7. Astro-day and Astro-nights 8. Science Days programme 9.Particle Physics masterclass

Science Club extracurricular activities

ARDUINO, LEONARDO, RedBoard ...

Arduino is an open-source electronics platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software for interactive projects. The Arduino Uno is a microcontroller board based on the ATmega328 processor.

It is simply connect it to a computer with a USB cable or power it with a AC/DC adapter or battery. Arduino boards are able to read inputs – from sensors, message - and turn it into an output - activating a motor, turning on an LED, publishing something. The microcontroller work by a set of instructions programmed through the Arduino Software (IDE).

Arduino UNO

diagram

Each of the 14 digital pins on the Uno board can be used as an input or output. They operate at 5 V. Each pin can provide or receive I=20mA current (optimal operating condition). If the current I>Imaximum =40mA on any I/O pin, the microcontroller could be permanent damaged.

https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardUno

Arduino Pro Mini 382 5V/16MHz

http://www.robofun.ro/reduino-core

Reduino Core

Arduino UNO

What we use for our projects?

OUR ARDUINO COMMANDED ROBOTS

At the Science Club we built a couple of robots (LEGO NXT, EV3 and self-made) which participated at several contests: WRO2013, WRO2014, RoboChallenge, Robotics-workshop, etc. For the WRO2013 we made a service rover which operates at the Commodore island. This robot checks for dragon eggs and collect the good ones. Another type of robot follows the coloured track and collects soil sample for analysis and detects the fire sources near the route. With these robots we organized interactive presentations and workshops for primary school students.

Robotics

LifeBot- The rescue robot This robot help the work of the rescue team. It is radio-controlled. • it can be used on most types of

terrain and water; water- and shockproof, fire resistant

• can localise victims by transmitting live video images about the searched area

• presents the parameters of the environment:

• measures the distance in front • identifies the vibrations occurring

in the chassis • transmits real time information

about the victim: measures body temperature and pulse;

• it is capable of minor medical interventions;

Block diagram for LIFEBOT –rescue robot 2o15

Distance sensor Sharp GP2D120XJ00F.

LifeBot components

Command panel with live information transmitted by sensors

IP camera

Medical unit

Our rover

A CanSat can simulate an exploration flight to a new planet, taking measurements in the air and on the ground after landing.

For the T-Minus CanSat device measurements we used the Arduino environment. Arduino is a C/C++ based language (learnt in school). We use the Wiring library. We activate the primary sensors and send the gathered data via USB connection to the computer. The flowchart is a schematic representation of the main (on-board) software structure:

Software for CanSat measurements

End void loop()

Send data to computer

Start void loop()

Start

Define variables

Read pressure sensor data

Read temperature sensor

data

Read altitude sensor data

Read gyroscope sensor data

Read gas sensor data

Read GPS sensor data

The main structure

of Arduino software

Pressure (kPa) during the landing

Temperature (o C) during the landing

CanSat competition at Andoya Rocket Range- Norway

CanSat 2015

Input Sensors: Pressure;

Temperature; Altitude

MPL3115A2; Humidity HTU21D; LSM303D

magnetometer; UV index,

MQ-2 gas ; Accelerometer;

Gyroscope; GPS and Camera;

CanSat 2o15

with soil humidity, structure

testing and piezo sensors.

The device: two emitter-receivers (ER), the CanSat (coke-can-sized-satellite) with sensors for pressure, humidity and temperature, communication unit and Arduino board connected all to a computer. With a Quadrocopter we elevated the CanSat measuring device up to (400-500)m high, established a wireless radio connection between the CanSat and signal emitter-receiver. We propose to study the speed dependency from pressure, temperature and humidity.

Measurements for the speed of electromagnetic waves

Block diagram of the measuring device

We recorded a lot of overtrick data from the Cansat and radio wave emitters (ER); we compared them and calculated the speed of electromagnetic waves based on the overtrick time of the signal. For each measurement we changed the distance between the ER-s 5 times. So we recorded data from 5 different distances more 1oo minutes, this means more than one million data.

Our measuring device at camp near our town.

The mean flight time for the EM- waves between the two ER-s.

Results

7080

7100

7120

7140

7160

7180

7200

500 600 700 800 900 1000

d(m)

day1 time (μs)

f(x)=ax+b; f(x)- mean flight time x- distance between ER-s (d)

Pressure and humidity dependency

We plotted the mean-flight time for each measurement as function the distance between ER-s and calculated the speed of the electromagnetic waves.

Our average result (we analyzed data for 1o days) was acceptable: c=2,85783*108m/s.

MINI METEO STATION with RedBoard

What we measure? •Pressure •Temperature •Humidity •UV index •PM10 and PM2,5 pollution in the air; •The sensor are fixed on ruf of the gym hall and they send the data to the statition located at Physics-lab.

RedBoard - (equivalent with Arduino UNO V3)

LEGO Robotics task: building an autonomous robot, able to carry out a pre-

programmed mission without any human intervention (move and collect balls, avoid obstacles follow a track, do something, move objects, etc.)

„raw material”: a LEGO NXT 2.0 and LEGO EV3 robot kit; challenge: creating a unique but simple robot and developing the appropriate control and command software

Program the robots with the icon-based software: icon based LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 Software (PC/Mac) is free.

Programmable Brick: serves as the control center and power station for robot. 4 Input ports: 1, 2, 3, 4 (to connect sensors) 4 Output ports: A, B, C, D (to connect motors) 1 Mini USB PC port (to connect to computer) USB host port (to add Wi-Fi dongle) Micro SD Card port (to increase available memory); Built-in speaker

LEGO NXT MINDSTORM LINE

Tracker robots with

colour sensor

WRO2014 (WORLD ROBOT OLYMPIAD)

We made a service rover which operate at the surface of on imaginary planet. Here are 15 solar-panels, but only 7 work properly. This robot check for bad Solar panels and replaces them with good ones. The wicked panels later are transported to the storage.

Space, space research, satellites, galaxies, exoplanets are all notions that are interesting to almost everyone but they seem very distant and inaccessible. This is just the appearance, because even the 9th or 10th grade students’ knowledge, curiosity, fantasy and inquisitive attitude are enough to bring these notions closer, into the classroom during the lessons or outdoor activities. Our experiment with the mini satellite, Science and Astronomy Day, astro-watching programs could help the students to understand more the theory also could be an excellent exemplification for new teaching opportunities.

ASTRO DAY and ASTRO-NIGHT programs

NGC 7ooo Cygnus Wall by Csere Mihály M17 Omega Nebula by Csere Mihály

ASTRO- NIGHT programme with Csere Mihály astro- photographer

NGC869 double cluster

NGC 281 Pacman Nebula by Csere Mihály Orion Nebula by Csere Mihály

Web-cam Project

„Amazing Science” Physics Meeting

SCIENCE DAY at county Library

What’ve we learnt?

• Teamwork; • Project management –how to do one scientific project from

planning to final product, results • Presentation (ppt., prezi) and workshop for younger

students; • Problem solving skills • A lot of physics: mechanics, atmospheric physics,

electronics, electricity; • Computer science, IT; programming (Arduino, C++ , icon-

based software, object oriented programming-C sharp) • on pollution + dust – influence on our everyday life;

environmental issues; • Robot building; • Handwork;

rkollegium@gmail.com http://www.szekelymikokollegium.ro